ROH Death Before Dishonor 2023 Preview & Predictions

This Friday it's the most afterthoughtiest Ring of Honor PPV in history, Death Before Dishonor 2023!

I kid, I kid.  Tony Khan has a lot on his plate right now, from back-to-back PPV-level shows in August to last night's Blood and Guts Dynamite (which I got to see in person and it was AWESOME), but this ROH show has been rather haphazardly tossed together, thanks partly due to one guy being unavailable and another being injured.  The original main event was to be Claudio Castagnoli defending the ROH Title against Eddie Kingston but with Eddie being in Japan for the G1 Climax that was out.  Thus Mark Briscoe was slated to get the shot instead and he got hurt.  So now it's Claudio vs. Pac, which might actually be a better match than either of the other two.  There are also five other title matches and a couple fun undercard bouts.  Let's get into it.

ROH TV Championship: Samoa Joe vs. Dalton Castle

Yeah, this one doesn't blow my skirt up as they say.  Castle won a four-man Eliminator tournament to get this shot but he's never really been my cup of tea as wrestlers go.  He's amusing and all, but hard to take seriously as a title contender.  I imagine Joe gets a pretty one-sided win here.

Pick: Joe retains

ROH Pure Championship: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Daniel Garcia

This should be a fine contest, both are legit grapplers.  Garcia's title shot comes from a tag match on Dynamite where Garcia stole a pin over Shibata.  The title has jumped around pretty consistently over the last year, with each champion only getting 3-4 months with it.  I could see that trend continuing I guess.  Maybe Shibata regains it in December?

Pick: I'll go with Garcia

ROH Supercard of Honor 2023 Preview & Predictions

Not to be overlooked this WrestleMania weekend, this Friday is Ring of Honor's annual mega-show, marking the first anniversary of ROH's resurgence under Tony Khan's ownership.  

This lineup is another stacked one, with a long-brewing ROH Title feud coming to fruition, a couple of NJPW stars joining the party, a wild AAA Mega Title match, and a special ladder match to crown new tag team champions, dedicated to Jay Briscoe.  This should be one spectacular show in front of 4000-plus fans, so let's take a dive....

ROH Six-Man Tag Team Championship: The Embassy vs. AR Fox, Blake Christian & Metalik

Could this be Brian Cage's swan song under the Tony Khan umbrella?  No one's really sure, but if the Embassy drops the straps here that could be our answer.  This will be a lot of nonstop action and would make sense as the opening match to get the crowd revved up.

Pick: I foresee a title change to kick things off with a bang.  Fox/Blake/Metalik 

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Daniel Garcia

Just announced last night, this one pits the AEW up-and-comer against the NJPW all-time great.  Must be a dream come true for young Daniel.  I assume he'll more than happily do the job for the vaunted legend, but Tanahashi will do everything he can to make him look like a million bucks before it's over.

Pick: Tanahashi

ROH Final Battle 2022 Preview & Predictions

Get ready, Ring of Honor fans, it's time for the Final Battle.....of 2022.

This Saturday afternoon marks the second ROH PPV under the Tony Khan regime, and once it's over we should finally at long last get some answers about the promotion's future programming.  Even as a longtime ROH fan I must say it's getting to be a lot, having essentially two promotions featured on AEW television.  Between having too many belts and having to find room for a whole other talent roster, it's made AEW programming very overcrowded.  I anticipate and welcome crossovers and talent exchanges between the two groups, but it needs to be done sparingly or it just gets overwhelming.  My hope is that ROH and its vast library find their new home on HBO Max.  The library alone will be so much fun to explore; I have dozens of their old DVDs but jumping around from disc to disc gets cumbersome.  Anyway, it will be interesting to see which AEW talent gets assigned to ROH full-time, if any.  It should also make Dynamite and Rampage into much more focused shows, which should help ratings.  But enough speculation, let's look at this PPV.

Swerve In Our Glory vs. Shane Taylor Promotions

I don't think I've ever seen Shane Taylor's team so I can't speak intelligently about them.  But SIOG is oddly teaming together after Keith Lee walked out on Swerve Strickland at Full Gear.  I guess they made up during that private conversation they referenced a few weeks ago.  It would be an odd move for their actual breakup to occur during this show as opposed to on Dynamite, but I suppose if you put a major AEW angle on an ROH PPV it conditions fans to not want to miss future ones.  Not really sure who to pick here - I guess Swerve?

Pick: SIOG

NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard Preview & Predictions

Welcome to an historic wrestling predictions column here at Enuffa.com!  This Saturday night we'll see the first non-WWE wrestling show since 1960 to emanate from (and sell out no less) Madison Square Garden, the joint NJPW/ROH venture known as G1 Supercard!

Check this off the list of Things I Never Thought I'd See.  New Japan and Ring of Honor are playing the fuckin' Garden, WWE's home arena from its inception till right about now.  This show pissed Vince McMahon off so much he tried to legally cockblock them from doing it (further poking holes in his infamous bullshit line "Our philosophy has always been 'Help yourself, don't hurt the other guy.'").  Fortunately his litigious overture didn't hold any water, and this show sold out in literally minutes.  Not only that, but WWE actually moved their NXT special to the night before, so as to not have to compete with it.  Getting WWE to back down from a Mexican standoff is no small feat.

This show has all the potential to steal WrestleMania weekend (though TakeOver: Brooklyn should be incredible too), and at worst it will leave WrestleMania itself with a tough act to follow.

We have eleven matches on tap (one of which is a pre-show Honor Rumble), five of which by my count could easily be ****+ outings.  Let's get to the picks.

Honor Rumble

Only a handful of names have been announced for this so far, but since Jushin Thunder Liger is retiring next year I'll pick him to win.  Like the New Japan Rumble this will likely be a throwaway.

Justin: Thunder Liger (see what I did there?)
Landon: Liger

NEVER Openweight/ROH TV Championship: Will Ospreay vs. Jeff Cobb

The proper show will kick off with a helluva contest, as Ospreay takes on yet another big power broker (after impressive New Japan Cup showings with Lance Archer and Bad Luck Fale).  Like his WK13 opener with Ibushi, this has the potential to steal the show.  I'm not crazy about the idea of multiple titles on the line in the same match, but I'm not complaining about the pairings.  I have to think Will takes this; his momentum has been off the charts since late last year and I don't think now is the time to slow it down.

Justin: Ospreay
Landon: Ospreay, mostly because I'm biased and want to get a picture with him and both belts during the War of the Worlds tour.

Rush vs. Dalton Castle

I know little about either of these guys and from what I understand the expectations for this match aren't terribly high.  But we'll see.

Justin: I'll go with Castle
Landon: Rush

ROH War of The Worlds 2017

The biggest show of this year's War of the Worlds tour is in the book. The third annual tour for New Japan stars in North America, and each of the four cards in the past week easily looked  to be Pay-Per-View caliber. Upon first glances at the four final cards, it looked to me that the New York City show was looking to be the least stacked, the whole show felt very thrown together last minute and banking on New Japan stardom to sell (which it id, but that's irrelevant in my argument). After the show was over, and glad that I shielded myself from spoilers, I found myself torn where the show was on the spectrum. Good? Great? Average? Maybe if I go through each match, I'll be able to piece the answer together easier.

Silas Young vs. Bobby Fish vs. Kushida vs. Dalton Castle
This was a very good opening match. It was ROH's trademark insanity to get the crowd up and ready to go for the rest of the show. However, several problems I have with the show overall can be found in this match. Look at the talent involved in this match; New Japan's Junior Ace, and a trio of Ring of Honor's biggest stars who hold at least a dozen World and Television title matches between them (Fish himself a former Television Champion). Putting these four in an opening, nothing match is very confusing move. Another glaring problem with this show was the length of the matches.Nine matches on the card, the longest of the matches went under fourteen minutes. I would have liked less, longer matches between the talent we had on this show. The way the event went, many of the matches felt both rushed to get to the end, while also coming off as really empty for content. Ultimately, Dalton Castle would win a short, but fast paced match, setting an unfortunate one for the night.

Archive of Honor: Respect Is Earned

I can't believe it's taken me a year and change to finally start talking about Ring of Honor on this site. The Phoenix of ECW has been my favorite Stateside wrestling company for years now, and I have enough DVDs in my collection from the past 15 years to last me as long as I want. I've wanted to do previews and reviews for ROH the whole time, but school, work, or other reviews got in the way. But a few days ago, I realized that today would be the 10th anniversary of Ring of Honors first ever PPV, Respect is Earned. And it happened that in my massive library expansion last month, Respect is Earned found it's way into my hands. So, if there was ever a reason to review the first DVD in my collection, it's this. Happy Ten Year Anniversary, you glorious Bastards.